Ed O'Brien on KROQ

Ed O'Brien rings KROQ in Los Angeles while In Rainbows is the number one album in America. The download price was capped at £99.99, and of about 1.2 million downloads roughly half paid; outside the band, three people in the world knew in advance. A generation now expects its music free, and the band had no wish to criminalise them, so the management turned the question round and asked people what they thought it was worth. They were out of contract anyway. At KROQ itself, the staff who had pre-ordered paid and never got the record, because the CBS Radio spam filter blocked the emails.

Asked whether Radiohead are fragile, he says they have five number one records “and we're still miserable”, then answers seriously. On the 2006 tour they thought they had the new songs nailed, recorded them live, and they sounded terrible. The day they stop making a good record is the day to pack it in, with no greatest hits sets. On whether the five pull in different directions, he says “thank God we're middle class, we never talk about it”, though a friend from school did tell him Hail to the Thief had no verses or choruses, when O'Brien had thought it a direct record.

What struck him most this time was Thom Yorke's lyrics, direct and emotional for the first time since OK Computer and The Bends; from Kid A to Amnesiac they were veiled. His own roots are post-punk pop such as XTC and the Police, a long way from Jonny Greenwood, who may be up for an Oscar for There Will Be Blood. The band have been rehearsing new songs, one of them a killer, and will be in Los Angeles in August. Coming off the road is the strange part, because within a week touring feels normal; back home at nine in the evening, with the children in bed, he is ready to rock.